


Gold, Black, and Gold

by TrulyMightyPotato



Series: Royal Expectations [4]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Dying children, Medallions, Sick Children, flashes of the future, incomplete magic, origins of these three, vague future visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 00:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10708665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrulyMightyPotato/pseuds/TrulyMightyPotato
Summary: Every Protector has a medallion, but they aren't born with them. In fact, they have to be given the medallion.





	Gold, Black, and Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks once again to Paradox for editing this for me.

Grayscale hated being sent out to give future Protectors their medallions. Not because it stopped them from dying, no; it was because it required taking them away from their parents for training. More often than not, the parents refused to have their young child taken away from them, and Grayscale had to take the child by force. 

Yet he was here, golden medallion wrapped in heavy cloth, walking the streets of an obscure village in the Fifth Realm as he followed the prompts it gave him.

Well, that was what he should be doing. Currently, he was arguing with the magic of the land. He’d already passed the house containing the child three times. 

The only Heir to the Fifth Realm was six. Surely his Protector could wait a little longer. Assuming this was to be Heir Cryaotic's Protector.

The medallion burned hotter. Grayscale cursed in a language the stones of the village had never heard, then turned and walked back to the unassuming house. He could hear words from a distant land’s language, and he blinked in astonishment. The Protector to the Heir of the Fifth Realm was the child of immigrants? That had never happened before.

\-----

Bluescale walked the streets of Primus confidently, despite the layer of frost covering the streets or the rumbling of the dark clouds overhead. She didn’t have to worry about guards seeing her, because she and her companion were hidden from human eyes. She didn’t have to worry about any malevolent spirits trying to attack them, because they could see what they really were. They wouldn’t dare harm her or her companion.

All she had to worry about was the bundle she held in her hands.

The past several years had seen her out delivering medallions to future Protectors many times, but she was excited for this one. This was the third and final black medallion of the generation. Wherever it led her tonight, whoever it led her to, would be the Protector for the young Prince Wade Barnes.

But she had to hurry. Time was running out for this Protector.

Bluescale glanced at the bundle, at the heavy cloth wrapping the black medallion, and grimaced. It was burning so hot she was starting to feel it, even through the cloth. 

That wasn’t good.

She wasn’t fond of the heat in the first place, being an ice dragon and all, but she could tolerate it. That wasn’t the problem here, though. The hotter the medallion got, the higher the fever of its human match rose. 

The medallion tugged her down another street, eventually bringing her and her companion to a stop outside a door, adorned with a familiar crest.

Bluescale blinked at the royal crest, then groaned to herself—and at the magic of the land. “You chose one of the Royal Guard as a parent to this kid?”

\-----

Greenscale hummed softly to themself as they strolled down the street of the mountain town. They’d been to this town several times in the past, and it had a large stock of sheep—large enough that nobody was really concerned when one or five went missing.

The gold medallion in their hands tugged them down another road, this one almost an alley, and Greenscale paused. There were no visible doors to houses, or even shops one could live above. Why was the medallion taking them through here?

Hesitantly, they followed the tuggings of the medallion.

The alley was a long one, and Greenscale was starting to worry something had corrupted the magic of the medallion when it stopped tugging them, leaving them standing in front of the shell of a long-burned house.

Greenscale let out a surprised breath, which turned into a concerned one as the air turned white from the exhale. What was a future Protector doing here?

\-----

Grayscale knocked softly on the door, examining the house. It wasn’t very large, maybe two or three rooms at most, so hopefully that would be loud enough. Despite the heat of the medallion, he couldn’t hear any cries of agony, so hopefully the child’s magic could sense the medallion close.

It took several minutes, but the door slowly opened to reveal a small girl. Grayscale blinked, and glanced at the medallion in his hands.

No. It wasn’t her.

“You have a sibling?”

She nodded. “You can’t see Felix. He’s sick.”

Grayscale crouched down next to her. “I can heal him.”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

He nodded.

She stepped aside and opened the door. “Then help him.”

\-----

The magic seemed to shrug, as if asking Bluescale what was wrong with the younger prince’s Protector being a child of the Royal Guard. Her companion, fortunately, was aware of both sides of the conversation, so he didn’t think she was crazy.

Bluescale hissed softly and started walking up the steps, dropping her invisibility spell. “You know very well what the problem is. I can’t just make them disappear now. Their parents will be under a lot of questioning if that happens.”

The magic seemed to shrug again, and Bluescale shook her head. It had gotten less and less talkative over the centuries.

The magic seemed to sigh.

Bluescale grumbled softly as she knocked on the door. “Yeah, yeah, I know. You know what you’re doing.”

The door didn’t open. Not surprising, considering how late at night it was.

The medallion burned even hotter.

So Bluescale drew her cloak tighter around her, then put her hand on the doorknob. The magic of the land willingly unlocked it, and she threw the door open.

As if waiting for this moment, the sky cracked and freezing fall rain began pouring from the sky. 

_ That _ was sure to get people’s attention.

Bluescale glanced over her shoulder to look at her companion waiting in the shadows, and she could have sworn he’d be grinning if he had any facial features left.

And then she plunged into the house.

\-----

Greenscale quietly looked at the medallion. Was the child even alive? Or had they come here to die? The house certainly hung with the air of death.

Greenscale shuddered. This was the kind of house that drew malevolent spirits. With the child in such a fevered condition, with the child nearing death, this was not a place one wanted to be.

But they had the medallion to deliver, and they were not about to let the child die if they could at all help it.

Greenscale took a breath, then stepped onto the blackened stone floor of the shell of the house.

\-----

The girl led Grayscale to the only open door inside the house, then led him inside. Two clearly exhausted adults were laying on the floor next to a child soaked with sweat. All of them seemed to be asleep.

Grayscale quietly walked over so as not to wake the parents, kneeling in the open space next to the child’s head. Felix, the girl had said his name was?

The medallion wasn’t burning too hot yet, so Grayscale took his time examining this Felix. What sort of vision would transpire when the medallion took to the boy? What laid in his future, and that of Heir Cryaotic? How would he change the Realm?

Grayscale let out a slow breath, then unwrapped the medallion in his hands. Quietly, he took Felix’s clammy hand, and placed the medallion on top.

Felix’s breath hitched, then released in one long, slow go.

\-----

The medallion was pulling up now, urgently, so Bluescale took the closest set of stairs two at a time. Hopefully there weren’t more than one flight of stairs in this house, but it didn’t really seem large enough for that.

The medallion tugged her down a hallway almost instantly, and then Bluescale knew exactly where the child, the future Protector, was. A door was cracked open, the barest hint of candlelight shining through.

Another step closer to the door and she could hear the agonized cries of the child, the agonized cries of imminent death, of incomplete magic.

When she slammed open the door to the bedroom, two adults jumped into action, one jumping to his feet with his sword drawn and the other pulling herself over the twitching child in the bed. Another child was in the room as well, but that didn’t matter so much.

“Put down the sword and get away from him.” Bluescale send a frigid look at the parents, noting how terrified they looked. “You can’t do anything for him.”

Bluescale pushed her way past the father and next to the bed, the medallion burning hot in her hands. She had to hurry.

“What is that?” The mother didn’t move her arm, preventing Bluescale from seeing the child clearly.

“The only thing that will save him.” She pushed the mother’s arm out of the way and grabbed the hand of the little boy in front of her. He couldn’t have been older than four. So young? The prince wasn’t that old either. How powerful would this child’s magic be, then?

“What are you doing?” 

Bluescale ignored the mother and dumped the medallion onto the boy’s hand.

Instantly, his fingers tightened around it, and his breathing caught. His body relaxed, and a long, slow breath eased out of him.

\-----

Greenscale found the future Protector easily enough. The incredibly young child had collapsed in the corner of the first room. Whether the child had collapsed from lack of food or water, or from the rags he wore not providing enough warmth, or from the fever brought about by the lack of a medallion, Greenscale didn’t know.

Greenscale knelt next to the boy, even as a dark presence began to gather behind them. The midnight hour must have been near, then, for the spirit to have enough power to threaten a physical form.

Greenscale rolled the boy onto his back. Many cuts and bruises ran up and down his arms and his face, and a lingering darkness seemed to be in him.

This malevolent spirit had been here before, then, attracted by the raw power that was an unbound Protector.

Greenscale shook his head, unwrapping the medallion. They wouldn’t let that happen again. They placed the medallion on the boy’s hand.

Five seconds, and it would take. The Protector would have his medallion.

_ Five. _

The girl was watching Felix with curious eyes, but she seemed to realize something was happening beyond her knowledge.

_ Four. _

The mother was looking at Bluescale with wide eyes, clearly struggling to comprehend what was happening.

_ Three _ .

The dark presence seemed to freeze as Greenscale wrapped their magic around it. It would not interfere with this delicate process.

_ Two. _

The three Guardians turned their gazes to the faces of these little boys.

_ One. _

In three different Realms, three little boys opened their eyes, and a jolt ran through the Guardians. Flashes of the future, or at least a possible future, ran through their beings.

Six figures, three pairs, back to back. Six medallions, three pairs, matched by color. Two gold. Two black. Two gold. 

A cave. A giant wolf standing over the still and bloody form of a bearded man, strong with the magic of the Seventh Realm.

The unmistakable roar of a dragon.

A night with no moons.

\-----

It had been a decade since the three boys had been brought in for training. It had surprised nobody when the youngest, PJ, had been claimed first: at the age of ten. But now, at fourteen, he was saying his goodbyes to the other two, Felix and Patrck. PJ was young still, but Phil Lester, the younger Heir of the Third Realm, had already gone longer than he should without a Protector.

Bluescale, Grayscale, and Greenscale watched from a distance. The three boys had grown close over the decade, to be sure, but none of the Guardians could forget what they’d seen when the medallions had taken.

“It is strange that we all saw the same thing.” Greenscale finally said, glancing at the other two. “Never would I have expected their destinies to be so intertwined.”

“Who are the other three, though?” Grayscale mused. “Two other noble Protectors and a royal Protector? We don’t even have another black medallion.”

“Perhaps...” Bluescale looked beyond the boys, to the shadowy figure watching on from the other side of the clearing. “We do.”

The other two Guardians gave her a startled look.

“Snow hasn’t had his body for almost a millennia.” Greenscale finally managed. “Why would he be the other black medallion?”

“Who else would it be?” Bluescale met Greenscale’s gaze coolly. “His royal isn’t yet dead. He could still return to full life.”

Grayscale sighed. “Are you suggesting the Demon Prince will have something to do with this?”

Bluescale shrugged. They all knew the future was unclear. “He may.” She returned her gaze to PJ, Patrck, and Felix in the clearing. “He may.”


End file.
